Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Today Nabil Al-Raee, the Artistic Director of The Freedom Theatre was
accused in an Israeli military court of possessing guns, helping a
wanted person (Zakaria Zubeidi) as well as three other wanted but
unnamed persons. The help Nabil is accused of rendering Zakaria – who
years ago was granted amnesty by the Israeli authorities – is that he
has driven him in his car and given him food and cigarettes. In response
to these accusations Nabil declared that he is starting a hunger strike
from tomorrow. “I don’t understand why I’m here [in detention]. There
is no reason for them to keep me here”. Nabil’s lawyer says: “This shows
that that they are desperate, they have nothing to hold against him.”

Nabil was taken by the Israeli army on June 6th at 03:00 in the night
from his house in front of his family. For two weeks he was not allowed
to communicate with his lawyer or have any contact with his family. Nor
were any charges made against him. Once suspicions were eventually put
forward, Nabil was first suspected of keeping information that could
lead to the identification of Juliano Mer Khamis’ murderer. In a later
court hearing the Israeli prosecution claimed that Nabil was involved in
“terror activities”. Then in a recent court hearing the military judge
declared that no evidence of any illegal activity had come up during the
almost one month of interrogations and that Nabil would be released.
However the prosecution was given a 48 hour period to appeal and put
forward this third, equally absurd accusation against Nabil.

Micaela Miranda, Nabil’s wife, attended the court hearing today:
“This farce started with them accusing Nabil of being involved somehow
in the murder of Juliano, then they accused him of terror activities and
now it’s something else. Every court hearing we go to there’s another
accusation, it’s ridiculous and it’s obvious that they are trying to
find a justification for having kept Nabil incarcerated for so long.”

Smadar Ben-Natan, Nabil’s lawyer, says: “This shows that they really
don’t have anything to hold against him. If these are crimes then it
means that everybody in Jenin camp are guilty of them. I hope that the
judge in the next court hearing will understand this and that they will
release him.”

The Freedom Theatre Foundation in Sweden and The Freedom Theatre
association in Jenin with its friends associations in USA, France,
Italy, Scotland and Germany rebuke these accusations as pure
fabrications that are part of the Israeli occupying force’s attempt to
destroy The Freedom Theatre entirely.

“Maybe they thought we would break down when Juliano Mer Khamis was
assassinated, but we kept on and now they are trying to suffocate us
slowly but surely by harassing our employees, members and supporters
with various accusations, one more absurd than the other. This
systematic harassment has gone on for a year now, it’s enough!” says
Jonatan Stanczak, the Managing Director of The Freedom Theatre.
Distinguished public figures such as Danny Glover, Noam Chomsky and
Judith Butler along with almost 200 other people from the artistic
community in the USA have called for the immediate release of Nabil and
Zakaria in a statement in TimeOut magazine in New York. Artistic
communities in Germany, the UK and elsewhere have made similar calls and
thousands of individuals from all over the word have signed petitions
and made complaints to Israeli and Palestinian representative bodies. A
few weeks ago 56 members of the European Parliament signed a letter
urging Catherine Ashton to take action and 19 members of the Portuguese
parliament, from all political parties except the extreme right, called
for Nabil’s release.

Break the Chains.info

is a news and discussion forum for supporters of political prisoners, prisoners of war, politicized social prisoners, and victims of police and state intimidation.

This blog is organized and updated autonomously of the disbanded Break the Chains Prisoner Support Network formerly based in Eugene, Oregon. While this online project shares several of the same concerns as the old Break the Chains collective, no formal organization exists behind the current web presence.

"I will never surrender my pride and dignity nor allow the system to 'cut my tongue' and I will always, without fear, speak out against these war crimes and crimes against humanity, no matter if I spend the rest of my life in a prison cage, and draw my last breath of air laying down in this steel bed surrounded by razor-wire fences and cages, and its prison policies that are designed to destroy one's humanity…."